A bucket wheel excavator generally comprises a bucket wheel which can be rotated to bring successive buckets into engagement with the ground structure to be excavated so that excavated material is torn from that structure, raised to a higher level and dumped from the bucket. The buckets can be provided with teeth or the like to cut into the material. At least one bucket-wheel belt is provided to carry away the material dumped from the buckets and, to guide this material onto the bucket-wheel conveyor belt, a bucket-wheel chute can be provided.
The bucket-wheel conveyor belt, in turn, can dump the excavated material from the chute into a receiving chute for a dumping conveyor belt which displaces the excavated material still further to an end of the dumping conveyor belt which can overhang a dump truck or other heavy motorized vehicle for carrying away the excavated material. The dumping conveyor belt can also have a drum over which the belt passes and at which the excavated material is discharged into the truck positioned therebelow.
The excavation with a bucket-wheel excavator can be effected in a sloped or inclined operation utilizing a conveyor belt system which operates continuously to remove the excavated material. However, with continuously operating conveyors, the removal of the excavated material by truck is not possible since truck filling and replacement of a full truck by an empty truck is not consistent with continuous operation of the belts. Nevertheless, a continuous operation of the bucket wheel is desirable.